The Plotter

The next steps are crucial. Be sure.

Over and over again the plot thickens and falls apart. Try and try again with variations and adjustment. See it all. Visualise. Every version a new idea. Every idea a worthwhile experiment. Perhaps some things should be only once, only one try to get it right.

Just below the wrist, a burn on metal. Distracts. Like the pumping pressure on the ears. Rhythmic thumps into the brain. It all alters the control. The sure thing. A burn below the wrist. A constant heat. Something. Another try.

The upper chest tight with anticipation. Going over the scenarios now. That makes it real, going over the scenarios. That tightens the bronchus and raises the blood pressure. Anticipation.

But when it is a sure thing. A 100%, you know. A full look at it.

And the mind wanders. This time around, the beat pushes through a thinker hanging. The light is pushed out into thin strips. As new textures run across the body infinite. This is a persistent moment. A constant and changing place. Every type an evolution of the last. Until it fizzles out into embers, burnt the longest but burnt all the same. Well used, they’d say. Not wasted, not at all.

Sure, is this not it?

Unlimited Walk

That second time, by the road in the rain. Watching the slipping tyres. Watching the drops in lines of three and four attack the earth. Unstopping. That time it was hopeless, no way there but to do it and persist. Get wet. Get dry. Get through it.

And this time. In that new place, by the edge of it all. Thinking about the impact it all has. The stretch goal. The targets and achievements for more and more of what? This time it is worth it? This time it is any different? And the core of the apple.. The rotten, stinking flesh that surrounds it. The real problems. The real agendas that just about get through the dirt. The ones that matter. They wait.

And it will buzz again. Like a wake up call after a wake up call. Get up. Constantly with you. Constantly checking in. In touch. Holding you. Controlling it all. Just keep yourself there. In the mix, in the firing line. It is hotter that way.

Turn it up. Here the crackle. Get inside it. You remember how this goes. The things you did and need to do. The agenda. Don’t run away with it. Let it in. Let it control or take it.

The lists of things. The next after this one which followed the one before. We remember that call. We remember that need to do without the lists.

And we think of the impact. The effect we have on a nothing world. A worthless effect. No return. No result. A Null value. This massive null value. An infinite loop. A feed machine. And we just digest the fat while spewing our resources into the mix. You wan’t sugar? You have taken it all. It is all gone now, down into that hole. That result is done. The unlimited. The unending. This machine is walking free in every direction. Following the carrot. Gobbling up the goodness and giving back squat.

Shouting Wildly

That un-phased madness is creeping in. Little by little you can see it on the streets. An abandonment which had never existed in these corners before. We are falling in. Slowly.

Quiet laneways and safe areas have been infiltrated. And now, little by little one can expect the ranting loon, angry at everything and unashamedly berating the air around them. Nothing is right. Nothing can ever be right for this mindset. The world has left them in a hole, dead to their sounds. Nothing echoes.

Whatever it is that triggers it – this madness – it pales in comparison to the indifference of the rest. This is probably what harbours it in the first place. A dead core, one that once had heart and would stop to react, partly out of concern and partly because this madness is unacceptable. This cannot and should not happen in this place. It would never be acceptable. But now we walk on – not our problem – because our ownership extends only the boundaries of our homes and possessions. No ownership of our lands and our fellow inhabitants.

“Who are these people? They must not be one of ours”. Irrelevant. The sickness goes unchecked, uncured, it spreads with ease and feeds on those where society and friendship have failed. Slowly eating into their confidence and assuredness until, one moment they crack, finding themselves bellowing haphazardly across a road at a man in a car, screaming incomprehensible nonsense that expresses meaning more so through its cacophony rather than its words and structure. A call for help that is ignored by the drivers passing by. The ones who want to know nothing of it. The ones who add to the madness. The ones that should be stopping and checking and doing what they can.

“Is everything OK?”… perhaps they never ask because they do not want the answer. Everything is sick.

How do you stop that rip in this fabric becoming a gaping hole? How do you cure the sickness and pause this progression into cold heartless living? Living is more than just the survival of individuals, it is about existing together and maintaining a morale. Morale is key. Purpose and intent is key. Concern and goodwill is key. Balance and distribution of happiness is key.

All of these things are not gained in isolation. They are existent in any society and dispersed by one individual to another, or by one group to another.. they are shared resources and their energies are enhanced exponentially with every event. Such that they never exhaust should those that receive be willing to go on and give. An infinite loop. A happiness loop.

But we have stopped giving. Really giving. From one face to another – not via screens – but through hands and gestures. Tangible communication. Stopping and asking. Talking and laughing. Asking questions and listening. Singing and drumming. Communicating directly. A cure perhaps.

Continue the loop.

Right From Here

It whips around the soul like a vice-grip. Locked. Unmoving obsession and compassion. Unsure why or when or how, but the questions are irrelevant. Just the tasks at hand remain to be completed and understood. This is simple process. This is repetition. The best kind. The therapeutic kind.

Yet you fight the attention. The obligation. The natural desires. You refuse to understand the needs and the want of others. Just do with it what you want. Just take it from there. These are simple requests and matters turned complicated for the want of no fuss. Turn off the lights again. Shut it out. Close the lid and fix it with glue and cement. Nothing will ever get in again. Bubble wrap the life of it. No more air. No more breathing. No more living at all for fear of no life remaining.

Locking it all away again. The wrong thing to waste it seems. The eyes strain at the shapes like never before. A discordance within the alignment. Nothing is straight edge any more. And don’t forget your stuff any more. Don’t forget what you need and what you have to do. Don’t forget to enjoy it all.

It is harder to pick up the pen and run it across the ripples on the brain. It is harder to lift the feet and push it through the skin again. Always harder when it is most needed. But the product is undeniable. The quality is forever.

How many more?

This is another late request. This is the second in quick succession. And silhouettes around the companion frame. A frame of light blowing past your edges. The brain recedes. The brain explodes in light. Excruciation.

What are titles amongst friends? The sounds of the past. The hours at play. The soundtrack to a childhood. We all hear the slips and the mistakes. We never forget the soundtracks and the feelings that they convey and embody. they are the most powerful of them all. Before we had the moving images to replace their story telling every tune was a place and an emotion. Every ripple of sound was full of place, time, emotion, feeling, narrative. the most expressive of sounds is the one that emotes an event. The one that tells a story without words. The one that lets a specific configuration of vibrations ring out true and full… the personal, the political, the local, the national.

Worts and all. These nights used to be the special ones. Now we just recover from the week’s damage. Rename the week’s end… Repair and recovery.

The detune is the essence of it all. And we look down hallways known for life and wait for the constructed awkward to pass. This is not how it was meant to be but always known to be the case. Look into that mirror, knock the head back and gaze at the roof. Let’s go now. How many more times this will come and go and come and go. The rhythm of numbers and letters ring true with the rhythm of past vibrations. I can feel the feelings I had then. The rhythm with which the faders and the buttons coincided with the sounds pre-made and lined up. The plans and designs come best sometimes from the end of a finger. No preconceptions, no corrections. Just pure ideas and feeling. The emotions of that time and space. That place you were in when you made it. When you thought like that. When you were that person. Looking at the week like just another. Not looking at a deadline or long term goal. Just looking at the wall in front. The same mirror. The same roof. Thinking let’s stay here and get it right. Let’s never leave. Let’s get up to this and only this and focus and keep it that way for good.

This is how it should always be. This is how I am happy with it. This is how I want it to stay.

But it never will. feeling the flow and the rhythm will never stop but the time and place will grow and develop with the soul/. The body gets older. The body gets heavier. The bones slow down. The mind gets slower. The time and place, will, change. That is inevitable.

And breath. And do it all again.

Too far past it

And when you decide there is only the 10% left the race gets thinner and faster and longer and harder.

Then you decide to fix it after the race is lost. Then you bring the water and tea. Then you bring the skies and the rain. Then the heat flows cold across your face and waters the eyes. Every morning that should happen. At every instance it should be possible.

And now there is not enough time. And now there is no other way than to direct through pieces of paper with protocols and the letter of law. We follow in its directive. One to fit all except for that. Exceptions.

Then we decide how much is enough and where too much gets involved. I will just pick this but you want that… and we hit new times. Hit new highs. Hit deeper and stronger.

It must all be possible. It must all be possible.

And yet the creativity they flaunt comes slow and hard. Like a thick tar on the brain it drips ever so slowly to the fingers. Complaining of time and cramped conditions. None of this. Just create. They say create. They do. They find out. Just play. Like now.

The big letters. The written script. The honed materials and broken shards of glass and metal. Rusted emotions. The expressions of a rational thinker. The rational thoughts of an expressive artist. Yet one and the other compared and contrasted. And the last ones lost to a comfortable lunch and a sit down. A break.

And we are all late. Every one of us. The team. And we will fix it. Because nothing is the end of the world ever. Nothing.

Tracking Home

That liitle bit further in. Forget time. It evades you. Lost between six strings. Plucking through it. Bound in rhythm and sway and shuffle. This explodes. It rocks against one and another. The desk. The shake. The good the best. The fitting together. Just dont fight it. A good lead. Deep inside the black again. Deep inside the box. Everything is right where it shiuld be.